The biological safety cabinet is the one piece of laboratory and pharmacy equipment that provides protection for personnel, the product, and the environment. Through the history of laboratory-acquired infections from the earliest published case to the emergence of hepatitis B and AIDS, the need for health care worker protection is described. A brief description with design, construction, function, and production capabilities is provided for class I and class III safety cabinets. The development of the high-efficiency particulate air filter provided the impetus for clean room technology, from which evolved the class II laminar flow biological safety cabinet. The clean room concept was advanced when the horizontal airflow clean bench was manufactured; it became popular in pharmacies for preparing intravenous solutions because the product was protected. However, as with infectious microorganisms and laboratory workers, individual sensitization to antibiotics and the advent of hazardous antineoplastic agents changed the thinking of pharmacists and nurses, and they began to use the class II safety cabinet to prevent adverse personnel reactions to the drugs. How the class II safety cabinet became the mainstay in laboratories and pharmacies is described, and insight is provided into the formulation of National Sanitation Foundation standard number 49 and its revisions. The working operations of a class II cabinet are described, as are the variations of the four types with regard to design, function, air velocity profiles, and the use of toxins. The main certification procedures are explained, with examples of improper or incorrect certifications. The required levels of containment for microorganisms are given. Instructions for decontaminating the class II biological safety cabinet of infectious agents are provided; unfortunately, there is no method for decontaminating the cabinet of antineoplastic agents.
Special thanks are due Mrs. Cathryn F. Eaves, Fort Detrick Technical Library, for locating journals and translations, and Mr. Joseph Forrest, National Library of Medicine, for locating innumerable "hard-to-find" foreign journals and double-checking problem references. We are grateful to the many interested scientists who contributed their unpublished data for Table 4. Lastly, we are indebted to the personnel of Industrial Health and Safety Directorate for their aid, especially Russell A. Thomas, who rendered valuable assistance in the animal experiments. The highly competent secretarial help of Mrs. Shirley T. Jewell was invaluable in the compilation of this work.
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